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Wednesday, 29 February 2012

W.I.P. Wednesday

Look what arrived in the post! The first of the blocks for the Modern Sampler Bee. Thank you so much Leonie. I have been eyeing up all the hexies that have been appearing on the internet recently so its great to have some on my quilt.

As I have finally started my own block for the Bee, and this my very first full sized quilt, I thought I'd start reporting on my progress every now and then. Because lets face it, it's probably going to take me quite a while to finish this project!

At this stage I have no idea how big the quilt is
going to be. I am taking the attitude that I'll see how far I get and
when I run out of fabric and inspiration!

I guess I'll just learn on the job.

And there is a lot of learning to do!

This quilt is proving to be a very steep learning curve!

The first thing that I learnt is to check fabric shops before choosing the colours of your quilt. When choosing my fabrics, I went on a huge online search and became really inspired by blocks using the colours aqua, tangerine. I told the girls in the bee to use these colours before I actually had a look at the fabrics that were on offer in New Zealand. BIG MISTAKE! Could I find the sort of fabrics that I was after? No!

This failure led me to lose momentum on the project. I dutifully made everyone else's blocks but couldn't quite get round to starting my own. Then the other day, I came across some Heather Ross fabrics from Stitchbird fabrics in the right colours and decided it was time to make a decision and commit to some fabrics.

I have to admit that the block that I am making is NOTHING like the blocks that I envisioned, BUT I'm loving it!

Not yet finished, but you get the idea!

Second mistake was not to trust my own instincts. When I chose the fabrics I was unsure as to the background to use. As I am useless at looking after whites, I decided on light grey. After about a day I regretted this choice and wondered whether I should change to slate grey. I ummmed and ahhhed but didn't change my colours.

When I sat down to work on my own block today I realised that it wouldn't really work with a light grey background. I changed it up and used a slate grey background- much better!

But don't worry fellow bee members, I am not going to discard your blocks. I am now actually really happy that I didn't change my colours, I am really excited by the idea of a checker board quilt with two colours of grey backgrounds.